Family Shepherding Titus 1 5-9

We'll take a Bible, please one that you brought, or if you need one, there should be one in the chair in front of you, and invite you to turn with me to today's text. Doctor Backham will be speaking on Titus chapter one, verses five through nine. If you use the Bible in the chairs, it's page nine hundred and ninety eight, page nine ninety eight Titus chapter one, verses five through nine. Let's stand together as we read the word of God. Hear the word of the Lord. Then this morning, Paul writes, this is why I left you in crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and to point elders in every town as I directed you. If anyone is above reproach. The husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick tempered, or a drunkard, or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated well, good morning. Is indeed a delight to be with you on this morning, And to address my assigned topic, which is family shepherding. And you might think it odd to address the issue of family shepherding and a pastor scripture that is one of the seminal texts on the qualifications for elders. But I assure you this is the perfect place for us to be. Perfect place for a number of reasons. First, when we look at the Book of Titus, if you go with me to that first paragraph there in the book, Paul gives us really the theme of the book, beginning verse one, Paul a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with Godliness and hope of eternal life with God, who never lies, promised before the ages began, and at the proper time, manifested in the world, or manifested in the Word, through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior. That phrase there at the beginning of verse one, their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness. That's the theme of the Book of Titus, the knowledge of the truth that accords with godliness. And throughout the letter he is pointing to and making a distinction between those who know the truth and are therefore godly and those who do not know the truth and are therefore ungodly. By the way, this knowledge of the truth is not just informational. He makes that clear later on in the letter that this knowledge of the truth to which he refers is the knowledge of the message of the Gospel. In fact, let's look there now, go to the chapter two. The end of chapter two, Chapter two, beginning verse eleven, the universe ten, he talks about adorning the doctrine of God our Savior, wearing the doctrine of God love. That phrase, adorn the doctrine of God our Savior, put it on, wear it. What does sound doctrine look like when you wear it, when you live it? Two eleven he says, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. So there is that truth that we are to know. It's the truth that Christ gave himself. Christ died a vicarious substitutionary atoning death on the cross in order to redeem a people for himself, but to redeem a people for himself who don't just escape hell, but to redeem a people for himself, who are, by virtue of their redemption, zealous for good works. And he gets very particular in relation to the good works that he's addressing here, and he goes to where the rubber meets the road, and he talks about the home, the household, the family, which is incredibly important, and he does it in a number of his letters. He gives the household codes. And the reason that he does this is because there is no place better to see and determine what you truly believe. Amen I mean, you can fool folks at church, you can fool folks at your job, but your spouse and your children they know. And people talk about the difficulty of raising teenagers. There are a number of reasons that make it difficult to raise teenagers, right, I mean, you know, one thing that makes it difficult to raise teenagers is feeding them. Amen, somebody, right. But another thing that makes it difficult to raise teenagers is that they are walking hypocrisy detectors except their own. But outside of themselves, they see all hypocrisy in here. There's something that blocks the detector from from from working on the on the inside, but on the outside they are walking hypocrisy detectors. And that that's a death knell for a man or a woman who is outwardly professing Christ but not living it inwardly. Because you can't hide there, you can hide outside. Some of you, some of you did it today. Some of you did it this morning. Right. You got into a big, knockdown, dragon out fight this morning before church. You know, you are arguing about you know, somebody not getting up on time or whatever. You just at each other, right, you know, maybe somebody didn't like how somebody was driving, you know, and then at each other over how he was driving. And then you get into the parking lot and you just pass the parking space and why you got you know, all this is going on, right, and they're gritting the teeth and the jaws are tight and all that, and then you park and get out of the car and say, he brow, how you doing grabbing each other's hands. Right. That's why when people's marriages fall apart, usually the response in the church is, wait, what them? Because you can hide it out there, you cannot hide it at home. That's where we are who we really are. You can't keep your mask on at home, not for long. And so they're in chapter two, and it's interesting. I want to make an argument for the fact that this is the list that we need to be looking at for godly shepherds, not just for elders. And there are people who may have a problem with that, but I want to show you a number of reasons that I believe that is the case. And one is when you go to chapter two, look at chapter two and look at beginning of verse three. We'll see two things here. Right. Number one, we see this whole idea of knowledge of the truth that accords with Godliness being manifested in the home. Look, older women, likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves too much wine. They are to teach what is good, that's knowledge of the truth. And so they are to teach what is good. And so what's the results of their teaching? And so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self controlled, pure, working at home, kind, submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. So there is a direct link right there, right to knowledge of the truth, this sound teaching of the gospel and the implications thereof, and the fruit being born within the context of that place where we all live and have our most significant relationships, and see the clearest manifestation of our godliness or lack thereof, which is the home. We have that list of things that older women are teaching younger men women, right, and then what's interesting is verse six, likewise urge the younger men to be self control. That's it. That's it. There's three reasons I believe that the list for younger men is that list in chapter one. My first reason, not my strongest, the fact that there's no list in chapter two. Hey, man, I didn't say it was the strong reason. I just said it as a reason there's no list in chapter two. It makes no sense. Why isn't there a list in chapter two? There's a list right for older women and younger women. There's no list for older men and younger men. Okay, there's a second reason. Look at verse seven. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. And in your teaching, show integrity, dignity, and sound that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say against us. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. Riddle me this, Why would elders need to model something that is only required of them? That makes no sense. You model something for people to follow, right, I mean, if nobody's gonna follow, you're not You're not modeling, you're performing. Right. But he said show yourself to be a model. And then there's a third reason that I'm arguing that the list for all godly men is this list we find in chapter one. Remember number one, there's no list in chapter two. Number two. The elders just supposed to be modeling something. And here's number three. There's nothing on this list that you're willing to say, now, I'll pass on that one for my son. Nothing in this list. Everything in this list, anyone who's raising a son, any Christian who wants to raise a godly son, you are going to hold on to everything in this list and not pass over any stitch of it. This is the list which means, young men, hear me. If you want to see what it looks like and what you need to prepare for in order to be a godly man and a godly husband and a godly father who shepherds his family. This is what you pay attention to. This is what you pursue if you're raising a young man. This is the standard to which we call him, and it's incredibly important because if we don't, the world has a standard. And the world's standard is the billfold, the ball field, and the bedroom. That's the world's standard. That's how they define manhood. Right again, it doesn't take long to figure this out. We're not even men and we're not like women. If women want to know you, If a woman wants to know you, she wants to know who you're connected to. Right, So you get women together who've never met each other, within a few seconds of the conversation, they're gonna be talking about their families. I want to know you want to know who you're connected to, who's your wife, who's your husband, who's your children? Men want to know each other within seconds. It's what's your job, which is code for how much money you make. It's the billfold we're measuring. We're measuring ourselves against one another. Right, how successful are you? Then? Is the ball field? Right? Are you an athlete? Where are you an athlete? How far did you go? How good were you? Right? Because that's how that's how we define the manhood. You know, I played so and so for such and such. Oh really, well, I played for you, right, okay? And in the bedroom conquests with women, that's how the world defines manhood. So our sons are out there in that world and they're hearing that over and over and over again. This is how you're a man. This is how you measure yourself against other men. And if we don't have anything else to offer, what they're going to have is the billfold, the ball field, and the bedroom with the Bible on top of it, and that dog won't hunt. So we have to have this standard. We have to have this picture, We have to have this goal in mind. By the way, this is how we shepherd future shepherds. Amen, this is how we shepherd future shepherds. Young ladies, if you're here and you have any interest whatsoever and being married, being a wife and a mother, and serving the Lord as a wife and the mother, pay attention, because this right here is what you want, amen. And if it's not what you want, then repent and teach yourself to want this rather than whatever else it was that you thought you wanted. Now with that in mind, let's look. There are going to be the three movements here in this text. First the shepherd and his family, Second the shepherd and his character. Third the shepherd in his teaching. And we're gonna see that this moves in reverse order. Look at verse five. This is why I left you in crete, so that you might put what remains into order, and to point elders in every town as I directed you. If anyone is above reproach, We're going to see that word a number of times, above reproach. That being above reproach is the idea of being exemplary, not perfect. Christ is perfect. Amen. Being above reproach is about being exemplary. It means that there's no charge that you can bring in these areas that's going to stick. He's exemplary in these areas if anyone is above reproach. The husband of one wife literally means a one woman man. Some speculate that, you know, Paul must be talking here about cultures where you know, people practice polygamy, and he's just saying here that you can't be a polygamist, you only have to have one wife. No, the phrase here is a one woman man. Polygamy was not much of an issue in these circles. And there's another phrase that he could have used if he was talking about polygamy. He could have used a phrase that basically said, can't be a polygamist. Amen. But the phrase here and again, we're talking about character. We're talking about character as it manifests itself in the home. The idea is being a one woman man, having the character of a one woman man. If I'm gonna put it in the vernacular for the young folks, he's not a player. He doesn't treat every woman as though she's the object of his affections. He doesn't have a wondering eye. He is a committed, one woman man. He's a covenant keeper. That's number one. That's what we want to raise. That's what we want to model. And as a shepherd, this is what The most important thing that I can do for my children is model a love for their mother and a commitmant to her. It starts there. The greatest and most significant manifestation of my godliness as a man is there. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her. There in Ephesius chapter five, at the end of it, we see that Paul says, this mystery is great, but I'm speaking about Christ and the church. It's a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church. So this gospel that we preach to our children is pictured and exemplified in the marriage relationship between a husband and the wife. That's significant. That's significant. Secondly, his children are believers. That's an unfortunate translation. The Greek word that's being translated there is the word pistas for faith, which is also for belief, to have faith or to believe. The better translations of this verse say he has faithful children. That's the better translation for a number of reasons. First of all, it's a better translation because we're talking about the character of the man and and my character can be exemplary. But my character doesn't save my children, Amen, doesn't. We're talking about the character of the man. Secondly, it would be incredibly awkward because if this meant, again for an elder, who is our model for this, if this meant for an elder that his children had to be converted, then every time a new child was born into his home, he'd be disqualified. You see. You see that because because we're not born believers, Amen, So that would be hugely problematic. The third reason that that's a better translation is because the explanation comes immediately after if his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. Now this has to do with how they're raised. You don't have to be converted for this to not be open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. So when we put this in this context and we're talking about character here, we're talking about the character of a man as a husband, and the character of a man as a father that he's exemplary. He's an exemplary husband and an exemplary father. This doesn't mean that there are no problems in his marriage or no problems with his kids. Can you imagine somebody's coming to you for counseling and they're like, you know, pastor, you know, my wife and I are struggling with this, and we're wondering if you could help us. And you're like, what struggle? What is that? But what is what? If? What is this thing you call struggle? We've never had one of those, baby, Have we ever had a struggle? No, Exemplary doesn't mean that there's no difficulty. Your exemplary in the way that you walk through it. Exemplary doesn't mean that your children don't make you want to I'm not even gonna finish that right because I don't want to give anybody any ideas, Okay, but it means that you're exemplary in the way that you walk through that and the way that we train, in the way that we discipline, and the way that we correct, and the way that we disciple, and the way that we mentor in the way that we restore. So this is what this is what we're modeling for young men. This is what we're living out as shepherds in the home, and this is what as young men we're aiming towards. To be a godly, faithful one woman man to a wife. It's easy to have a lot of women, people do it all the time. It's difficult is having the character to be faithful to one and being the kind of man that one we want to stay with long term. Amen. Okay, in the words of that great theologian Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that, right, And young women, young women, hear me on this. This is what this is what you look for. This is what you look for. A man who's looking for a wife, not a plaything, a man who wants to be married, a man who wants to be a father someday. If he says he doesn't like kids, he doesn't want kids, run leave. Now. God's first command, be fruitful and multiply. It's part of why we're here. And I know in this culture in which we live and this age in which we live, we despise children. But it's a lie. It's a lie. You know how I know it's a lie because we don't act like that. On the back end, tell my wife this all the time. But when ours were, you know, we Lord have mercy. We got nine kids, we got nine kids, we got nine kids. We got seven kids still at home. And so we walk through the airport and people do that and then with their eyes. It's amazing how people with their eyes can speak whole sentences because with their eyes they go all yours, and then with our eyes we go yep. My favorite is when we're going through the airport with our seven who are still at home, and they go, at lease, all your children. I go, nope, we got two more, and people just look like but not. On the back end, if the Lord should tarry and give me and my wife another forty fifty years and we're surrounded at the end of our days by fifty grandchildren and a hundred great grandchildren, nobody then nobody then is gonna go, I think all yours? Do you guys not have a television? Do you not know what? No. On the back end, they will say you are blessed that that that that should be our attitude, that children are blessing, that they're that they're inheritance from the Lord. The other thing while we're here. Don't don't, don't, don't take this for granted. Can't tell you how many young people have this attitude foisted on them by the culture, and it's you know, well, we don't want kids, we may or maybe maybe maybe, And then later on in their life they decide later in life that now they want kids, and then they learn for the first time that you don't just snap your fingers and have one. And now they go from ah, we don't know to God, Please, God, please don't buy the lie. Don't buy the lie. Secondly, the character issue verse seven. For an overseers God, Stewart must be above reproach. There's there's that word again, so above approach and his family life, and then here's above approaching his character. We have negatives and then positives. He must not be arrogant, quick to a drunkard, violent, or greedy for gain. He must not be I should not have to say. If if we see this in our sons, we correct it. We we rebuke it, We we we disciple. There we we correct, there we we discipline. There we again. If we see these things, we go before the Lord and pray that God roots this out of our sons, because that's not the makings of a godly shepherd. And if as a husband and a father, you find yourself struggling with arrogance and a quick temper and drunkenness or violence or greed, if you're here today, repent, turn from that sin. Turn from those sins, and turn to Christ and fire forgiveness, find restoration in Him. And then find someone to mentor you, disciple you, and hold you accountable, so that this is not you Verse eight, but hospitable, a lover of good, self controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. There's the picture. That's what we're aiming for, young women, that's what you're looking for. It amazes me how many times you find a man who's arrogant or quick tempered, or a drunkard, or violent or greedy for gain, and you talk to their Christian wife who's struggling. And here's what I've never heard from a Christian woman. I never heard he was none of those things before we married. I've never heard that. It's usually yes, I saw those things, but I hoped that God would change him. Or worse, I hoped that marriage would change him. Listen, marriage doesn't no, no marriage doesn't and it won't. Only God by his grace, only the Gospel, only knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness. We want the hospitable, the lover of good, the self control, the upright, the holy, and the discipline, and then finally the shepherd in his teaching, he must hold firm. And by the way, this is where oftentimes people say, yes, those other things, they're sort of general, and they apply to all men. But certainly verse nine only applies to people who serve as elders. Okay, he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught. Do you not want your son to hold to sound doctrine? Come on, now, he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught. How is he gonna wash his wife with the water of the word If he's not holding firm to the trustworthy word as taught, How's he gonna do that? Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. How does he do that if he doesn't hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he can exhort or instruct in sound doctrine. How do you instruct in sound doctrine. If you don't hold a sound doctrine, how and how do you bring up children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord if you're not instructing in sound doctrine. No, this is this is also what elders are modeling, because it's what men as shepherds of the home are responsible for and young women. Let me say this with all of the urgency that I can. If you have not found a man whose godliness is something that you want shepherding your children, don't marry him. He'll be the father of your children, the shepherd of your family. Don't do it. I don't care how tall and handsome and rich and whatever else you want to I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. It will never be enough. And there are plenty of Christian women who married for looks and for status and for whatever else, who would plead with you and say, girl, if you girl, please don't do that. Don't do that. I would give anything to have a godly man who loves the Lord, who knows the Word, who can disciple me, who can disciple my children, who can be a godly example, rather than me having to rescue my children not only from the world, but from the influence of their ungodly Dad. Nothing, nothing is more significant than this, so that he might instructing sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict this. Now, this text works backwards. Remember what he says is knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness. Watch this, if you go backwards from verse nine. You have a man who holds to sound doctrine, so he can teach sound doctrine and refute unsound doctrine. That's his knowledge of the truth. That knowledge of the truth accords with godliness Versus seven and eight in his own life, and godliness which manifests itself in the way that he shepherds his wife and his children. That's what we're called to that, that's that's what the Gospel produces in us. And that's what our hope ought to be as husbands and fathers and wives and mothers, that that our homes look like this, so that generations can look like this. Not not that our home guarantees those outcomes, but but we believe that God is sovereign over the means as well as the ends. And if the ends is generations of godliness, the means is a generation of faithfulness. At some point, there has to be a generational faithfulness. Let me say this to you. My time is gone, but we don't have another service coming. Last service, I was one minute over and I felt guilty the whole time. I ain't worried about y'all, though. Okay, so, but I want to say this because some of you know me or know anything about me. And I know this because people come to me sometimes and they say things like I hear that. I get that. Wives will come to me and say I hear that, and I get that. But you know, my husband's never seen that. My husband's never been exposed to that. What do you do if your husband's never been exposed to that? And I kind of smile. And the reason I kind of smile is because I was raised by a single teenage Buddhist mother in south central Los Angeles, California, drug infested, gang infested south central LA. I never heard the gospel till my freshman year in university. I say all that to say that you don't have to grow up with this in order to recognize the truth of it. In Scripture, our God is a father to the fatherless. Amen. Here's the second thing. Well, my husband's gone, my husband died, my husband left. I never had a husband. What do I do? You do everything you can, and you trust that God is a father to the fatherless. But here's the other thing that you do. There's a three legged stool here in the milk of Titus. One leg of the stool is godly shepherds in godly families. The second leg of the stool is godly shepherds in churches who are modeling this. The third leg of the stool is godly mature men and women in the church who are modeling and mentoring. That's what we see in chapter two. So if that's not present in your home, then it becomes more important that you make sure it's present in your church. That you make sure that your children are exposed to godly, manly elders in the church who exemplify this, and that you find godly mature believers who have lived this in their lives and who can be mentors for you and models for your children. God hasn't left us without an answer, and he hasn't left us without hope. He hasn't left us alone. This is important. In fact, it's of the utmost importance. Most people who come to know the Lord come to know the Lord through their home and through their family. The overwhelming majority of people, it's always been that way historically, have come to know the Lord through their home and through their family. God uses this, God blesses this. May we be faithful and try him to do his work as we follow him as godly shepherds who are raising godly shepherds, who are teaching our sons to be this and teaching our daughters to look for it and long for it and to settle for nothing less. Let's pray, our gracious God and our Father. We thank you and praise you for your word for the truth of the Gospel. We thank you for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that saves us and sanctifies us, that transforms us, that conforms us to the very image of Christ, our Shepherd, Grant by your grace that we might embrace this gospel, believe this gospel, and be transformed by this gospel, And that as such you would raise up godly homes, godly shepherds, that you would prepare equip and a call godly young men and godly young women to be faithful in their day, and to bear fruit for generations to come. This is our hope, this is our great desire, and we ask it because we do believe that it is in accordance with the will of our Lord, Savior, Master, Redeemer and King. And so we pray this in his name and for his sake. Amen.